#costing

First you need to determine your financial goal. This is where you want to be, and it's probably more than you think. This is assuming you either want to go full time with your art, or want to use it to supplement your income. If you are just doing it casually on the side you probably shouldn't think about it this hard and just skip to the part about the hourly rate.

So how much money do you need? Start by adding up all your expenses. All of them. Rent, food, entertainment, whatever. Include some extra for your savings. Don't forget tax too.

To calculate tax, you can't just multiply it by the percent either. You need to gross it up, so if the tax is 20% where you live, multiply your net financial goal it by 20/80 to get the tax you need to pay, so it's actually 25%. The same goes for if it's 40%, it would be 40/60. Add that as a other expense.

If you already have a job and want to supplement your income with commissions, your figure should be the difference between where you are now and where you want to be financially, but you need to be realistic.

Financial goal - Other Income = Commission Income Goal.

Next you need to determine your labour hours. This will vary widely depending on your style, habits, and other obligations, but it's up to you to determine how many hours a week or a month you are able to work. It also helps to do your budget with different amounts of labour hours so you can prepare for the unexpected. Maybe you can do 10 hours a week, maybe you can do 40. Don't forget to budget in time off. I'm never going to be in that hustle shit and work shouldn't dominate your life.

Now you should be able to calculate your approximate labour hours for the year. Maybe it's a little, maybe it's a lot, maybe you'll need to try some different numbers until you can get something that works for you, but I'm sure you can guess what comes next.

Required income ÷ Labour Hours = Cost per Hour

Have you ever walked into a business class by accident, and as the famous tweet says, the teacher is writing a fomula like that on the board and everyone is taking notes like it's actual school? Now you can use it too.

Next you need to figure out average times for each style of piece, colours, shading, backgrounds, extra characters, you should be able to get an idea of how long each kind of drawing takes, so from there it's just,

Cost per hour × Hours required = Commission Cost

It would be nice to be done there, right? Sadly this isn't a magical finance class class world, so if you've ever taken an econ 101 class, you know what's coming.

Supply and demand mostly only works in theory and falls apart in many real world circumstances, (Economists DNI) but for online art it's actually fairly reliable. The calculation above is what your ideal cost should be, especially if you are thinking of going full time, but in reality the main thing that determines your com prices is supply and demand. How much do people pay for art the same fidelity as yours? Is there a demand for your unique style? Some artists can charge hundreds an image because they are popular, some are great but the demand isn't there.

Basically what I'm saying is to massage the numbers until you commission cost is someone people are willing to pay for. That's finance baybeeee

The whole of this post is don't undervalue yourself. Even if the market value of your art is technically below what it should be for you to make ends meet, you shouldn't undervalue yourself. Keep your goals in mind and make your prices as high as they can while people will still pay for it. I can't wait for the day when market values are a thing of the past and people can make what they want because we are no longer being forced to do bullshit to survive.

Erik is actually the one who usually will start PDA, mostly as a possessive move because he can hear when people think himself or Sting is attractive

Sting doesn’t mind, he’s possessive too

Sting is a snorer, and it took a while for Erik to learn to tune it out to fall asleep and stay asleep

He briefly contemplated suffocating Sting with a pillow

As I mentioned above; they’re both possessive, it’s a dragonslayer thing

Neither get jealous often though, and when it does happen it’s mostly on Erik’s side because Sting is extroverted and friendly

A night out for them is always quiet because of Erik’s hearing, they can’t go anywhere too noisy

Probably a movie or something will limited talking, maybe a private table in a restaurant

They briefly met during the Eclipse Gate, but they didn’t really interact until after Acnologia was defeated

Sting thought Erik was mysterious and handsome as hell, Erik knew exactly what he was thinking, of course, but he thought Sting was cute too